A Gift of Ghosts

  ***

  Five minutes? That was what she’d said, five minutes until neurons died.

  Zane had ripped off his t-shirt and was holding it to Akira’s face, trying desperately to stop the bleeding.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  She’d taken a hammer and broken her hand.

  She wanted him to do the same. Maybe not the hammer part, but the breaking part.

  Could he do it?

  But even as he thought the question, her body relaxed, her muscles loosened, and the seizure ended.

  Thank God, he thought fervently, looking down at her as she blinked a few times and shook her head. That must not have been as bad as she expected.

  “Zane? Honey?” she said, looking confused, and putting a hand up to her face to push his t-shirt away. “I just had the worst dream.”

  Zane froze. The words were wrong. But so was the voice.

  She was already pushing herself to a sitting position when he asked, “Mom?”

  “Oh, honey.” Akira put her hand to her temple, squeezing her eyes closed, as if she had a pounding headache. “What are you doing here?”

  “Mom?” Zane repeated himself, as he crouched next to her in the dim light of the bedroom. “Tell me something that only you would know.” He didn’t want to believe this. This couldn’t be his mom. It wasn’t possible. And it was more than impossible, it was flat-out creepy. Could his mom’s ghost really have just taken over his girlfriend’s body?

  She shook her head and laughed faintly. “What?”

  “Please, just tell me something that only you would know.”

  She looked at him and they were Akira’s eyes, the brown so dark it was almost black, nothing like his mother’s eyes. But the expression was wrong.

  Just wrong.

  “You’ve always been my favorite?” she offered.

  His answer was a choked laugh. Now that was right. Not that he was his mom’s favorite, but that she’d say so, in just that way.

  “You say that to all your kids,” he answered automatically. She did. Routinely. Sometimes even in front of one another.

  But it wasn’t good enough. A good fake, a good cold reader, could have gone for just that soft spot. Every kid wanted to believe that he was his mother’s favorite. And if it was wrong, it would still make the mark happy.

  “Try again. Something only you would know.”

  She shook her head, and then brought up her other hand, so that she was pressing both temples, expression pained. “I don’t know, honey. I can’t . . . Shouldn’t you be off with Lucas? I thought you had that job in Paris this week.”

  He stilled. His mother had been a sensitive subject between him and Akira. He’d never talked to Akira about his mom’s death after those first conversations. And who else would have? How would Akira have known that he and Lucas were in France when Dillon died?

  Now that he had the truth, he didn’t want it.

  “Oh, but . . .” she started and then she stopped. She looked at him for a second, face still, and then she curled in around herself, hands covering her face, shoulders hunching down, legs drawing up, as if she was trying to make herself as small as possible.

  She hadn’t done that in life. He’d seen her two days after Dillon died and she’d been stoic. Upright, perfect posture, face composed, taking care of business. And death had a lot of business attached to it: funeral homes, newspapers, plans for a service, communications with friends and neighbors.

  He touched her shoulder, feeling helpless. It was old pain to him. But her grief was throwing him back into that moment. Zane had missed the police investigation and the expedited autopsy, but he and Lucas had arrived in the middle of the planning stages, just barely in time to see their mother before the stroke that killed her, and then take over the planning for a joint memorial service.

  Well, Lucas and Grace had taken over the planning, anyway. Zane had spent a lot of time playing foosball with his dad.

  “What?” Her head shot up. “Dillon?”

  Scrambling to her feet, she hurried over to the window, reaching out as if to embrace an invisible figure. And then she recoiled. “What the hell?”

  She looked back at Zane, and then back and forth between the window and him as he stood, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

  “Dillon’s dead,” she said. It wasn’t quite a question.

  “Yeah.” He answered her. Dillon wasn’t the only one who was dead, though. Should he tell her?

  “What?” she said again, looking down at herself in shock.

  Hmm. It looked as if Dillon was telling her for him.

  “Oh, my God.” The horror in her voice was so like his mother’s tone when she got offended over something in the newspaper that Zane almost wanted to laugh. He could practically see her throwing the paper down by her bowl of breakfast cereal and swearing she’d never again vote for whatever local politician had annoyed her.

  “This is not okay,” she snapped. “What were you thinking?”

  “Me?” she continued, and then she looked puzzled. “Really? I suppose. Oh!” And then her eyes grew wide and her hand flew up to cover her mouth. “I thought that was a dream.”

  Zane glanced at the clock on Dillon’s bedside table. It was blinking. No one had bothered to reset the time after the last power outage. How long had it been already? And did this count as a seizure? Were Akira’s five minutes still ticking down?

  “Mom,” he said. “You really need to go.”

  But then he stopped.

  This was his mom. He’d missed her so much. The whole family had grieved for her and still grieved. Every anniversary, every birthday, every holiday was as colored by her absence as it had been shaped by her presence in life.

  But still, every minute might be putting Akira in more danger.

  She looked confused. “I should talk to your father.”

  “No.” Zane’s reaction was immediate and strong, but instinctive. He didn’t know where it came from, but he repeated himself. “Mom, no.”

  “Why?” She touched her forehead again, pressing her fingertips against it.

  Zane took a step closer to her, feeling helpless, unsure, but trying to find the words to say what he felt sure was true. A rumble of thunder sounded from outside.

  “He misses you every day,” he finally said. “Every day. If you talk to him now, today, it’ll be the best day of his life. But then tomorrow, it’ll be the worst day of his life all over again. And you could be hurting Akira by being in her body like that. You can’t stay long enough to talk to him. You have to go. And really go this time. Look for a door or a passageway or something and go through it. And take Dillon with you.”

  Her lips firmed and she frowned.

  “Mom,” Zane said, feeling desperate. “Akira told me how to get you out. Ghosts don’t like pain, she said. If I hurt her badly enough, if I beat her, you’ll let go of her body. Don’t make me do that.” He didn’t even try to disguise his horror at the idea.

  “Huh,” his mom said. “I gave birth to four children without painkillers. Nothing you could do is going to hurt more than that.” But then her gaze softened as she saw his expression. “And you couldn’t do it anyway, honey.”

  “Probably not,” he admitted. If he closed his eyes and tried to pretend he was playing baseball, swinging a bat? But no. No amount of pretense would make a difference. “I can’t. So please don’t make me try, Mom. Please just let go of her.”

  She sighed. She looked around the room, and then at the doorway, and she seemed to be listening. “I’m really very angry,” she said, but she didn’t sound angry, she sounded sad.

  Zane glanced at the clock again. Two more minutes had passed.

  “How could you?” His mom said, but it was clear that she wasn’t talking to him. Come on, Dillon, Zane thought fervently. Convince her to let go.

  “All right.” She turned back to Zane and her smile—it was his mother’s smile, the wry half-amuse
d, half-annoyed smile she showed when she signed his report cards, littered as they were with comments like, ‘Could be an A student if he ever turned in his homework’ and ‘A pleasure to have in class, but needs to apply himself.’

  “Tell your father that if I’m moving on, he should, too,” she said briskly. “And tell your sisters that I still want more grandchildren, even though I’m not here to nag them about it. Tell Lucas . . .” She paused and Akira’s eyes filled with tears, but then she continued. “Tell Lucas I’m sorry I failed him.”

  “Oh, Mom,” Zane’s words were a murmur. She probably didn’t hear them over whatever Dillon said, though, because her impatient wave didn’t look directed at him, as she added, “He trusted me to take care of you.”

  A flash of lightning was followed by a quick crash of thunder, and the soft drumbeat of the skies opening.

  “All right, already,” she said, sounding exasperated. “Moving on.”

  She looked at Zane and her smile warmed. “I love you, baby. Be happy.”

  “Love you, too, Mom,” he answered, the choke in his voice not enough to block the clear, strong words.

  And then Akira’s face went blank, and her body swayed. Zane jumped forward, catching her before she fell again.

  Thank God, he thought again. Thank God. His sisters and brother, his dad, they might be furious with him for not letting them have a chance to say good-bye, but he had to talk to Akira. He had to tell her he was sorry for doubting her, sorry for questioning.

  Although he still wasn’t convinced about that pain thing. It wouldn’t have worked on his mom, he was sure of it.

  But Akira didn’t push herself up and away from him. She didn’t speak up in the cranky, annoyed tone that she used when she showed weakness. She didn’t do anything.

  “Akira?”

  Was she breathing?

  Her body was a dead weight in his arms, her soft hair brushing his chin. “Akira?” he repeated, sharper this time. He tried to turn her, but she was sliding, her legs not holding her, her body limp and heavy. He side-stepped two steps trying to keep her upright, but her feet were slipping so he bent his knees, bringing her gently to the ground, supporting her head as she dropped to the carpet.

  “Akira?” He tried for a third time, but there was no response, not even a flutter in her eyelids. He glanced at the clock again. How long had it been? But the light of the clock was gone. Damn. The power was out.

  “Akira!” he snapped. And then he reached for her neck, for the soft crevices next to the strong tendons, feeling for the beat, for the steady thud of her working heart.

  Nothing.

  He took a deep breath and tried to still his own panic. Maybe he was touching the wrong spot. He shifted his fingers, and tried to calm himself, and tried to listen, and tried not to let his unruly thoughts take control. But . . .

  Still nothing.

  Her heart wasn’t beating.

  She was dead.